Coincidental Consequences

Life is full of coincidences, some elicit favourable, while others unfavourable consequences. If one were to carelessly glance over various newspapers of the past few months, covering the Senate elections in the US, Pakistan and other international events, one could coincidentally precipitate on events pertaining to great consequential historical importance:

“Two incumbent House members, Earl Hilliard of Alabama and Cynthia McKinney of Georgia, both of them supportive of the Palestinian right to self-determination and critical of Israel, were defeated by relatively obscure candidates.”

“The lone senator opposed to the war in Iraq, Senator Paul Wellstone died in a plane crash two weeks before the elections”.

Some interesting tidbits on George Bush Senior’s tenure from the analysis sections:

“The only time the United States accidentally dared to pinch Israel in the butt was when John Sununu, Chief of Staff at the White House during George Bush Senior’s tenure, refused to release Israel a loan on the pretext that Israel should discontinue building further settlements in Palestinian territory. Mr Sununu himself an Arab-American by descent was fired from his job and the loan was released in the nick on time”

“Former Senator from Illinois, Paul Findley wrote the book, “They dare to speak out”; the book exposes the workings of Jewish lobby groups within the US and the people who stand up against it. Mr. Paul Findley might have sold his book but was never re-elected again.”

“Where Middle East policy is concerned, the lobby has turned the legislative branch of the US Government into what Jim Abourezk, a Former senator, once called ’Israeli-occupied territory. “

A piece from a news report on the Hamas bombing in Jerusalem, which puts the ‘s’ in the special relationship that America and Israel have:

“Through a bedlam of screams and crashing glass, students fled in horror from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem cafeteria, in the Frank Sinatra Student Centre, some trailing blood onto the concrete courtyard of Nancy Reagan Plaza.”

If the word “Hebrew University of Jerusalem” is taken out of the report prosing through the subtleties of Jewish Jerusalem’s landscape, it seems as if the terror attack happened inside the US.

For the cynical reader the above portion of the article could all be conspiracy-theory hogwash. I agree there is always an element of doubt, it could all be a coincidence and at the same time I admiringly admit that as far as the dynamics of lobbying in the US political arena is concerned, at least it is conducted surreptitiously or semi-surreptitiously with a certain sense of public discretion.

In hindsight after witnessing the coincidences that unfurled during the pre and post election phase in Pakistan whose consequences are yet to be seen and fathomed, one acquires an acutely converse sense of cynicism (maybe because I am one of the candidates that lost! ). Without coining any conspiracy theories, an eventful march through the past couple of months:

The formation of Q League from within Nawaz Sharif’s Muslim League; release of prominent politicians arrested under corruption charges, all of whom are now supporting this Q league, including a former head of a sectarian outfit; proliferation of ordinances; delaying of the National Assembly session and during the delay the formation of a breakaway forward political block (in complete abeyance of the law on floor crossing), one party having access to government helicopters to fly to Balouchistan to vie for a single parliament member; such blatant wheedling for whom? Before pointing not-our-business naive fingers at Jewish lobbies, what are we to do with our uniformed indigenous lobby, which is manipulating the political process of Pakistan? What is the end result of this calculated exercise? Have the moderate elements in Pakistani society been strengthened or weakened?